Category Archives: Night Writer

Rehearsing

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My wife, the Reverend Mother, preached a sermon yesterday. In it she described how there is a book being written about our lives, every day, and that one day that book will be opened. But there is also, she said, a script for our lives that has already been written and that we can follow. I know both are true.

The first book is scary. Many things are in there that I wish I could rewrite, or delete entirely. Unfortunately, all my rough drafts are there, unalterable:

my missteps…

half-finished thoughts…

idle words…

careless plots and sketchy character development —

all of it, just waiting for a real Author and Finisher.

The script, however, is comforting. It means that I, like an actor at rehearsal struggling to learn a new part, have a guide to fall back on; someone who knows what the plot twists are for and how the story ends. It means that in any scene, if I lose my way or forget my part, I can stop and say,

“Line, please.”

Short on sleep in the city that never bothers to

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I’ve always loved coming into Manhattan from the outlying boroughs. Approaching and crossing the bridges or coming through the tunnels always has a certain feel of anticipation as if traveling to a fantasyland. In the past I’ve always come to the island via the Newark or LaGuardia airports, but this trip I landed at JFK. In one of those oddities of air fare arcania, I had a choice between two Northwest flights, each leaving Minneapolis at the same time on the same day, one arriving at LaGuardia and the other at JFK, one minute apart. The LaGuardia flight was some $650 more than the one that landed at JFK. That’s math that even I can do. (Heck, I can even do it in story-problem form: if two planes leave at the same time for the same destination, arriving at almost the same time, and if the Night Writer selects the one that costs $650 more, how long before Corporate Accounting comes down on him like a herd of flesh-eating frogs?

Approaching Manhattan from Queens especially enhances the sensation of being backstage at a big show. Nearing the Queensboro Bridge I noticed a cemetery resolutely holding its ground while the highway, roads, brick warehouses and homes pressed round its perimeter like a river coursing past a boulder. It occured to me that cemeteries tend to be a reflection of their environs. When I drive through rural areas, for example, cemeteries have lots of empty space around them and seem to jut up from the empty fields suddenly, without transition, much like the communities they serve. Squat stones and tall stones break up the lines of the earth in the same way the houses, barns and silos do. In Queens the headstones – squat and tall – are compacted together, their straight, tidy rows and random heights and shapes looking like a modeler’s panorama of Manhattan’s grid. I thought of these headstones again this morning as I had a bagel and coffee while looking out the window from the 44th floor of the Hilton in mid-town (yes, Corporate Accounting knows about this, too); the stone rectangles of differing heights and colors running row after row below in straight lines below my feet.

That’s about all of Manhattan that I saw on this short trip. Yesterday I went directly from the airport shuttle to a 13th floor conference room overlooking an inner courtyard off of Park Avenue. From up there, though, I could hear the filtered sirens and honkings from the streets below and the miscellaneous crashings and bangings that are a constant part of the background noise of the city, much like bird song on a country morning. Six and a half hours later I followed our little group out of the conference room and across the street to a restaurant; three hours after that I walked the half-dozen blocks to my hotel.

Though that was still “early” – especially by New York standards – it was still 18 hours after I had woken up that morning, a sleep that itself had only lasted about 3 ½ hours. By the time I got up to my room last night the 20 oz. Caribou coffee in the Minneapolis airport, two cans of pop and one cup of Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee (now that’s what I call a conference room!) in the afternoon that had provided life-preserving stimulation earlier were exacting their payback in the form of palpitations and twitchy muscles in my forearms and fingers. When I was younger I might have thought, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” Last night I was more interested in sleeping like the dead. The neon lights may be bright on Broadway, but they were nothing compared to the ones going off inside my head — and it was definitely time for lights out. I might as well have been in Des Moines or Owatonna except that way down below, the New York City serenade was a soothing backdrop.

You really can find anything you want in New York, including a good night’s sleep.

Go tell the Spartans Rams

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There were two brave, defiant and ultimately glorious campaigns on display this past weekend featuring determined underdogs rising up to give their much larger foes all they could handle and more. One was in the new movie, “300” (see previous post) — the story of 300 Spartans standing against the massive Persian army and the elite Immortals at Thermopylae to defend their way of life. The second was tiny Roseau High School demonstrating its way of life by rising up against greater numbers and big school hockey powers with their monstrous enrollments to win the 2A (highest) state hockey title.

For the Roseau Rams, “The 300” might refer to the school’s enrollment (342 in 2006, to be exact), but like the Spartans they proved that when you get your opponent in a confined space you can triumph through heart, spirit, discipline and skill. What makes it all the more inspiring is that it’s not just a Cinderella story of a small school winning out against long odds, it’s a story of Cinderella saying “Forget about the ball, I want to be on ‘Dancing With the Stars.'” Roseau had the option of playing in Class 1A, created back in 1992 to make things “fair” for schools with smaller enrollments from which to draw their teams. Like the Spartans, they sneered at any such accomodation by themselves or their opponents, especially since in the days of the one-class, all-sizes tournament they had made 29 trips to the state tournament and won five titles.

In “300” Leonidas forcibly rejected the Persian ambassador’s request for a token sign of obedience and submission to King Xerxes. “This is madness!” the ambassador said, seeing the hostile intent. “This is Sparta!” shouted Leonidas as he kicked the man into a pit. Similarly back in ’92 the State High School league came to northern Minnesota with a similar, reasonable proposal to bow to the forces of reason and warm, fuzzy feelings. “This is Roseau!” was the response, with the authority of a slapshot from the blue line, and the small school with the proud tradition insisted on competing against the biggest schools at the highest levels, going on to win the 2A title in 1999 and again this year, persevering over teams in the field with as much as eight times their enrollment.

In ancient Sparta, young boys were taken from their families at age six and sent to the agoge, to learn fighting and endurance, to develop a love for freedom, self-government and responsibility, and to never retreat or surrender. In Roseau the children start skating even earlier, learning to forecheck, backcheck and keep their egos in check and to never, ever stop skating.

There were two brave, defiant and ultimately glorious campaigns on display this past weekend — I hope you enjoyed and appreciated them both.

300 reasons

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I was among the 90 percent male audience at a 9:00 p.m. showing of 300 over the weekend. Some of the guys there were younger men and a few looked a little geeky and there were one or two older ones I might have pegged for still being in residence at their mom’s house, but most appeared middle-aged and normal — a category I hope the others thought that I fell into. Having read Steven Pressfield’s “Gates of Fire” and Frank Miller’s graphic novel that the movie was based on I’d been eagerly awaiting the release of the latest movie version of the Battle of Thermopylae (I even rented 1961’s The 300 Spartans, made when Hollywood thought “epic” also had to mean “plodding”). Here’s my brief review of the movie and some thoughts that have occurred to me since it ended.

Overall the movie was very good. The look of the film was definitely unique and strongly resembled Miller’s book, which was the intention. The “graphic novel” artistic treatment (and it is artistic) mitigated the gruesomeness of the ultra-violence to some extent, and while it was bloody (and came close to over-using the slow-motion) I felt it was a believable rendition of what hand-to-hand combat in close confines with sharp-edged weapons would be like. It’s definitely not a date movie unless your girlfriend also happens to like field-dressing roadkill, but there is a discernible plot and some inspiring and intense performances that makes this a good story. Additionally, it is a thought-provoking examination of duty, honor and patriotism that’s short on speeches and long on demonstration.

I was disappointed with the gratuitous scenes with naked women; the scenes fit within the story but appeared to be driven more by a marketing formula for the target audience than from story-telling license. The scenes between King Leonidas and his wife, and in the seductive blandishments offered by King Xerxes to the traitor Ephialtes, easily could have been shot with a bit more discretion. Not that this is a movie for younger teen males anyway, but the nudity definitely would be a distraction from the more laudable themes in the film. Otherwise “300” is an inspiring and entertaining movie for action film fans and those who will draw some conservative political allegories from the story.

While much is made of the battle being between a small group of free men and an invading slave army of a couple hundred thousand, I thought there was little effort to frame the historical significance of the effects on Western Civilization if the fledgling Greek city-state democracies had been absorbed the Persian empire. Ironically, Spartan society was probably less “free” than the Persians; while it is portrayed as an egalitarian meritocracy, it was also rigid in its laws and cruel — some might say eminently practical — in its single-minded warrior ethos. At the same time it made a religion out of exalting honor, duty and courage and “300” makes that point with all the subtlety of a Spartan xiphos.

King Leonidas is the standard-bearer and champion of this creed, even to the point where he breaks the rigid letter of the law in order to ultimately defend its spirit, standing firm against the alternating threats and flattering of his foreign enemy and standing in disgust at the treacherous collaboration of his own Council of Elders that sought accommodation and surrender to the apparently overwhelming enemy (based on the portrayal of Council, duty and honor weren’t universally revered in Spartan culture as the politicians manipulated events for their personal gain and grudges regardless of the cost to their country). For Leonidas, while freedom may be ripped from a Spartan’s dead fingers, it must never be willingly released due to fear, complacency or indolence.

The movie also helped me see another important point. The Spartan warriors are all very fit and well-muscled, conditioned to their “Spartan” existence of war and striving. While my own body bears little resemblance to theirs, I know that I was born with the same number of muscles in my body as they had; the difference is in how they developed what they were given. Similarly, I think we all start with the same capacity for faith, duty and honor within us and these, too, can be trained, exercised and built up to astonishing and awe-inspiring levels. When we do, even just a handful can change history.

They’re animals!

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I don’t follow the animal kingdom news quite the way KingDavid does but a couple of stories have caught my eye. I’ve really been pressed for time the last couple of days but here are some quick takes:

Mmmm, tastes like…chicken
A farmer in India has discovered that the mysterious predator eating his chickens was one of his very own cows. This may be a breakthrough in bovine cuisine. I’ve sometimes wondered who the first person was to eat an oyster, and how much trial and error went into that process (shell on or shell off, I can’t fathom what would make someone think of putting these in his mouth.) This carnivorous cow may be opening up new food frontiers for its kind; perhaps no cow has ever looked up from her clover and thistles before and thought, “I’d like a drumstick!” We’ll probably never know the reason for this sudden change in diet (maybe this cow is the reincarnation of Col. Sanders?), but what really puzzles me is how the cow caught its prey in the first place.

Chickens are quick and agile; does the cow run down its prey like a cheetah, or is it an “ambush” predator like a crocodile? Either one conjures some images my mind isn’t quite ready for.

Coyote union protesting unsafe conditions?
Coyotes have been causing problems at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, diverting flights by running out onto the runways. It’s not a recent phenomenon either, as the FAA says planes have hit coyotes at Illinois airports 26 times since 1990. I’ve never pictured Abraham Lincoln or Richard Daly bedding down for the night to the mournful sound of coyotes howling at the moon, but I’m not shocked to learn there are coyotes in Chicago. Anyone who has traveled knows it’s next to impossible to get across the midwest without getting sucked into O’Hare. Given that it’s Chicago, what would surprise me is if these coyotes weren’t already unionized. Perhaps these incidents aren’t about animals randomly running out on the tarmac, but a picket line? I also think it might warrant a closer look at the voter-registration rolls over the past ten years.

Update:

Ooops! I see that KingDavid is already on these stories. Oh well, warped great minds think alike.

Gaming the name

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Hey, do you know that professional football game that they play at the end of each season? The one with all the expensive commercials and the all-day pre-game show? The one that sounds like something Clark Kent might use to eat two gallons of Rocky Road ice cream? Yeah, that one.

You may already know that the NFL is like Terry Tate, office linebacker, fresh out of law school, going after people and businesses who use its trademarked name for this game. I learned this more than a decade ago when I was writing an advertising and promotional campaign for a brand of microwave popcorn that was being launched in the U.K. Part of the promotional campaign was that by trying the new snack you’d get a chance to win an expense-paid trip to the U.S. for the … well, the Big Game. We had planned to use the real name of the event, but we were threatened with an “illegal procedure” call so we used the BG alternate wording.

Many other businesses have done the same as they annually promote their snacks, HDTVs, adult beverages and recliners leading up to the “Big Game”. Now the NFL is trying to call “Encroachment” on these sideline retailers by seeking to trademark the Big Game audible as well (HT: The Trademark Blog and Likelihood of Confusion).

It’s kind of reminiscent of those NFL commercials from a year or so ago where players such as Jerome Bettis and Daunte Culpepper would suddenly appear, uniformed, in business meetings or warehouses to penalize people who misused football cliches. If this registration goes through you’ll have uniformed NFL lawyers laying crackback blocks on any sports bar putting “Watch the Big Game here!” on their marquees.

I really can’t see how the NFL is harmed by these enthusiastic but unauthorized efforts; referring to the Big Game doesn’t give anyone the impression that the sale, happy hour or sofa are sanctioned or licensed by the NFL or detract from the allure of the game. If anything it probably just adds to the hoopla that has practically turned that Sunday into a national holiday. (It does kind of make me wonder if the real Santa Claus gets a taste from all those copy-cats in the malls and taped to walls). Certainly this move by the NFL could make things a lot worse.

After all, “The Big Game” has a positive connotation. If forced to be more creative retailers and bars might have to resort to saying “Watch the Great Commercials here!” or “Be sure to stock up on drugs before the Steroid Bowl!” or “Your Lame Game Headquarters!”

Who said you can’t go broke betting on the bad taste of the American public?

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Howard Stern talks but the (shareholders’) money walks…

The announcement of a proposed merger between Sirius Satellite Radio (SIRI, news, msgs) and its archrival XM Satellite Radio (XMSR, news, msgs) was treated by most of the media this week as if were just another financial event to be studied through the prism of balance-sheet analysis and the federal regulatory approval process.

But the merger plan actually amounts to the death of a dream for investors who came to believe that shares of Sirius — propelled skyward for a short time by the hiring of snarky talk show host Howard Stern — would make them rich beyond compare.

For while the merger might ultimately save the company from total oblivion, it is unlikely to save investors from billions of dollars in losses incurred over the past several years or, perhaps more importantly, from a loss of faith in stock ownership.

Millions of people bought Sirius shares at $6 to $8 for their retirement accounts, and rode them down to $3.50, never losing faith in Stern. At this point, they need to face up to the fact that they’re screwed. Stern made half a billion. They will make nothing. They can file SIRI stock certificates away under “S” for stupid. They blew it.

Free as a bird

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We had little idea how much personality a bird can have when we adopted a storm-tossed budgie a couple of years ago. Actually we knew very little about budgies at all, including how to figure out if the bird was male or female. We’ve since learned that “budgie” is an abbreviation of an Australian word, and we’ve become well educated in many different aspects of bird-rearing (and determined that our bird’s a sheila).



Now that our cat has moved on to happier hunting grounds The Bird (Tiger Lilly may have a name for it, but everyone pretty much calls her The Bird) has many more opportunities outside of her cage to have the run (or airspace) of the house. She always wants to be wherever her “flock” (us) is, whether she’s in her cage or not. Any companionship appears better to her than none, but she is especially bonded to Tiger Lilly. Anyone will do in a pinch, or peck, however, as I’ve discovered.



Saturday morning my wife and I were up before Tiger Lilly and my wife let the bird out of her cage while we read the paper. The bird loves to shred newspaper, so this was like an invitation to party. Take it from me, it is very distracting to have a bird trying to savage the section of newspaper that you’re reading. This particular morning, however, The Bird decided to share the paper with my wife, probably because the last time she and I “shared” the paper it got to be pretty frustrating for both of us. My wife was clever and thought to offer up a sacrificial section of the paper (probably the one with Nick Coleman’s column in it) to busy The Bird so she could read the comics in peace. Just like the cat, however, The Bird is only interested in the section that you have in front of you. After a couple of tears at the decoy section she hopped over to my wife’s leg and started working at the folded gutter of the paper. My wife is much more patient than I am and gamely continued to read. When she opened the section fully, however, to turn the page she discovered a better-than-bird-sized hole in the middle of the paper (including a missing punch-line from the last panel of a comic).



After the ensuing protest The Bird decided a change of scenery would be beneficial, so she flew across the room and landed on my shoulder. She wisely didn’t make for the paper right away, as I turned my head and we regarded each other like familiar opponents. It so happened that when I turned toward her she was able to see her reflection in my reading glasses.



You know, it is kind of a strange sensation to see a magnified and blurry beak coming at your eye.



Finding herself again airborne, The Bird went on the hunt for more docile prey, or at least another section of the newspaper. I don’t understand why chewing up the newspaper is so interesting to her, but I suppose it’s probably a good source of fiber.



That’s all I need — an unconstipated budgie flying Dawn Patrol in my living room! I never thought I’d miss that cat.

Charmed, I’m sure

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Last month I posted a brief review of the move Everything is Illuminated because I like the unexpected, unconventional and beguiling nature of the story, the well-crafted scenes and performances, and the human insights that lingered in my mind for days afterward. I hadn’t expected to like the movie all that much yet I was totally won over. Since then I’ve thought about some of my other all-time favorite movies and realized that many of these shared distinctive characteristics with this film. The stories aren’t really related to each other, but they are all off-beat (non-formulaic) delights that surprised and charmed me and — as we head into a snowy weekend — I thought they might charm you as well.

My top three favorite movies may shift from time to time, but Local Hero will always be near the top of my list. Released in 1983, it stars Peter Reigert (post-Animal House) and Burt Lancaster and is directed by the estimable Scottish director Bill Forsyth (Gregory’s Girl, Comfort and Joy). Like all of the movies here it has a light, whimsical streak running through it. The story is that a large Houston oil company sends one of its acquisition specialists, McIntyre, to a small Scots town to purchase the town and, especially, its deep water port that they want to turn into a refinery. Part of the joke is that Mac isn’t even Scottish — his ancestors adopted the name when they got off the boat from Hungary because it “sounded American”.

Devoted to his job and his lifestyle, Mac sets out to complete his mission as quickly as possible but finds himself becoming enchanted by the place and ambivalent about his task. One of the special twists of the story, however, is that rather than being outraged and protective of their community, the locals can’t wait to sell it and become rich! There are several subplots as well and a great cast of characters (referring both to the actors and to the “townspeople” in the movie). The movie is quirky but not in a heavy-handed, off-putting way and it reveals itself little-by-little. The story is partly meant to be a commentary on American capitalism abroad, but this is done warmly and with wit; the scenes between Mac and an entreprenuerial Russian sailor are some of the best, though these are surpassed by Burt Lancaster’s small but vital role. Beautiful scenery, a beautiful story, and did I mention that there’s a mermaid as well?

I always link The Coca-Cola Kid with Local Hero in my mind because it also tells a comedic tale of what happens when American interests go abroad, but in a more allegorical manner. The screenplay is by an Australian and directed by a Yugoslavian, but culture clashes at the center of the movie, and the characterization of Becker (played by Eric Roberts in one of his less-twitchy roles) is more bemused than pointed. Becker is a hot-shot marketing guru from Coca-Cola, sent from Atlanta to Australia to boost sales in that country. (The movie was made without the fore-knowledge or blessing of Coca-Cola). When he discovers a populated valley in which absolutely no Coke has ever been sold he sets out to conquer, in the process meeting the patriarch of the valley, a cantankerous lord who bottles his own brand of soft drinks.

Greta Scacchi plays the love interest, again, somewhat as an allegory, as are several other characters who come and go with their own perceptions and assumptions about Americans set up in contrast with Becker’s assumptions of this new land. It’s a funny and generally gentle story with great music, including a terrific Coke jingle that the company should have adopted in real life. It’s a good companion movie to watch with Local Hero, but there are a couple of scenes with nudity so it’s probably not for kids (though the story wouldn’t be as interesting to them anyway).

A movie that is ideal to watch with the whole family is The Secret of Roan Inish. There are no big stars in the film, but it is directed by John Sayles, who’s work I’ve liked since “The Return of the Secaucus Seven” (another off-beat charmer that was later ripped off by “The Big Chill“). The story focuses on Fiona, a young girl sent to live with her grandparents on the Irish coast after her mother dies and her father and brothers go to work in an industrialized city. Her grandparents still live near the island that was the home of Fiona’s family going back several generations and the seat of the family’s mystical history and the setting for the mysterious disappearance of Fiona’s younger brother, Jamie, spirited away when he was an infant.

While that sounds rather dark, the story is anything but as Fiona and her cousin find themselves gradually unwrapping the nearly forgotten ancient secrets of the family and the mystery of what happened to Jamie. Rest assured, there isn’t a speck of evil in the story. In fact, one of the things that makes the film so unique in my mind is that it generates such a compelling drama without a single villain. The young actress who plays Fiona (Jeni Courtney) is amazing and easily carries the movie. I’m surprised that she hasn’t gone on to do other movies (“Roan Inish” was released in 1995). It’s a tremendous story of faith, love and character and an ideal experience for the whole family. Bake some bread, cook up a pot of soup, and eat while you watch the movie!

This is another movie that took me by surprise when we first watched it. The Emperor’s New Clothes is a “what if” story about what might have happened if Napoleon had managed, through the use of a body double, to escape from Elba and make it back to France. Rest assured, however you think this might have turned out, you’ll definitely be surprised by the story that unfolds. Ian Holm is fantastic as the two Napoleons and the story is a very funny and touching one with a bit of romance and adventure thrown in.

I’m not sure why we even rented it in the first place, but I’m glad we did. While the premise sounds predictable, the story is delightfully original and veers away from the cliched scenes and character reactions that you might expect. It’s not a “major” film but it is very entertaining with likeable characters and a seductive plot. If you rent it just sit back and relax and go with the story and you won’t be disappointed.

New to the Blogroll: Away With Words

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Regular visitors here know that reading a well-turned phrase has an endorphin-like affect on me. I have recently come across a blog that threatens to send me into a blissful stupor of chocolate-factory proportions. That blog is Away With Words and I couldn’t wait to add it to my “Night Lights” blogroll.

The blogger is Nancy Friedman, and she describes herself as “…chief wordworker of Wordworking, a name developer, corporate copywriter, and recovering journalist. She swims in San Francisco Bay and bakes in her Oakland, California, kitchen.”

The blog focuses on “names, brands, writing, and the quirks of the English language” and is a witty and aesthetic take on our culture and the joys (and tears) of the English language (think “Eats, Shoots and Leaves” with an American sense of humor.) In addition to the breezy posts, Away With Words has the most distracting blogroll I’ve ever come across. Check it out!